Bucking The Odds (Dancing Moon Ranch Book 9)

by Patricia Watters

  "Not from what I've seen so far today with the way Mario's acted," Jeremy replied. "He didn't once challenge Roberta. When she said, 'jump,' he pretty much asked, 'how high.'"

  "That was a puzzle at first," Billy said, "but I think I figured that out too. Roberta's Mario's sister. I asked her how long she's lived here and she said twenty-five years, which is how long Mario's sister's been in witness protection, and she treats Mario like a younger brother, which explains why she was miffed because he didn't call her on her birthday, and why she worries about him."

  Jeremy laughed. "It's pretty ironic, everyone knowing the truth but saying nothing… the elephant in the living room we'll all ignore for a while. But Mario also said something I found curious. When Roberta asked if he was staying this time, he said, maybe, which made me wonder if he's thinking about retiring as a U.S. Marshal and staying here."

  "I think I figured that out too," Billy said. "Mario's a matchmaker. He knew my dad was an entomologist, and that his sister had a lifelong interest in bugs, and I distinctly remember the odd look on Mario's face when I was talking about wanting a place where you and I could ride into the hills. It was then that Mario came up with the idea of putting us on his sister's ranch. It also explains Roberta's comment when she asked if he was there to stay. Maybe he is."

  "Another elephant in the living room," Jeremy said.

  "Meanwhile, did you find a minute to call your folks and tell them we'd arrived safely?"

  "Yes," Jeremy replied. "Mom told me something I'd never realized. She said she felt I was more a part of the family then before we were in the program because I call all the time now, when before, I didn't call much, which was true. I took for granted they were all back at the ranch, and I called when I could, but I was involved with other things so I tended to put it off. Mom said Ryan and Josh also call more, so maybe we've all become better sons."

  "Honey, you always find the silver lining in things," Billy said. "I love you."

  "I love you to." Jeremy rolled onto his back and pulled Billy against his side, and said, "Tomorrow, after we take the horses and scout out our temporary home and put in a good day working cattle, with Diesel's help, I want to start planning our house with the view of Steens Mountain, but I think we might as well plan it without a Grandpa Fuller room, and instead, plan a guest room for when he and Roberta come to visit."

  "I love that idea." Billy glided her hand leisurely over Jeremy's bare chest, loving the way his hard muscles felt beneath her palm. "Do you believe in predetermination?"

  Jeremy looked askance at her. "Is this going to be a philosophical discussion in the middle of the night, because if we're going to stay up, I can think of something I'd rather be doing than talking philosophy, unless we could talk while you're doing what you're doing, and you might move your hand down a little further."

  "Not a philosophical discussion, just an observation," Billy said, thinking she'd make the discussion short because things were starting to happen to her too as she followed the contours of Jeremy's chest, while slowly making her way down. "Predetermination is the idea that all events have been pre-established, and human actions can't interfere with the outcome of the pre-established chain. So the way it works with us is, Sal, doing what he did, got me and Dad into a program where I met you, and it brought Dad here, where he'd been twenty-five years ago, which was also when Roberta arrived, so there's that connection, and Dad and Roberta are destined to be together, and I believe we're destined to return to the Dancing Moon Ranch because I have a bracelet that says we will, and we'll be living in Harney County because Josh is keeping my animals, and there's a piece of land waiting for us there."

  "Sounds good to me," Jeremy said, "and if you move your hand down a little further, I think we're about to set another chain of events into motion."

  "Just don't get any idea that if we have a girl, she'll be named Billy."

  Jeremy chuckled. "Whoever she is, I think she's about to take her place in the chain of destiny." He let out a grunt as Billy's hand moved down to connect with the means of making their daughter a reality, and after that things moved fast, and when they came together, Billy pictured herself and Jeremy racing together on horses toward a grove of aspen trees, where in the distance beyond, a single mountain rose to impressive heights. And she and Jeremy would make love under the aspens before heading back to the ranch and the bull pen to get Wild Card ready for the National Finals Rodeo, and Jeremy would be entered in the finals too, and he'd ride Wild Card there and it would be the ride of his life, and Jeremy would win the world's title, and Wild Card would be Bucking Bull of the Year, and they'd both make the rodeo hall of fame…

  "Wow, honey, you really put everything into that," Jeremy said, after they were done. "I feel like I just rode Wild Card."

  Billy kissed Jeremy soundly. "You did in a way," she replied. "It's predetermination. We just set into motion a chain of events that can't be stopped now. Just wait and see."

  Billy realized some of Jeremy was wearing off and she too was beginning to have his wonderful optimistic attitude that things would work out.

  Snuggling against him, she closed her eyes and found herself visualizing a cedar house with a wide front porch, and a big living room with a view of Steens Mountain, and in the field near the barn a little girl would be guiding her horse around the barrels set up for her to practice…

  "Honey?" she said dreamily.

  "Hmm?" Jeremy hummed.

  "Would you rather have a boy?"

  "A pretty little barrel racer would be fine," Jeremy replied, and pulled her against him and rested his head against hers.

  Billy placed her hand over Jeremy's heart, and when she closed her eyes, it was as if she were watching their life ahead unfolding, and she saw that little girl, and a few other kids, and Steens Mountain in the distance, and Jack and Grace and other family members would come to visit, and Ruth and Matt would be there, and Ryan and Josh and their families would be around, and life would be good. Smiling inwardly, she gave a contented little sigh.

  ###

  Note: Watch for Jeremy and Billy to be reunited with the family in BOOK 12: FINDING JUSTICE, the final book in the series, which should be available sometime in 2015…

  Thank you!

  Thanks so much for reading. I hope you enjoyed Bucking the Odds. If you did, I'd love for you to:

  Consider posting a review: I appreciate all reviews and I check my reviews frequently. Here's the link to Amazon

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  Check out the Dancing Moon Ranch Family Album. The 14-book Dancing Moon Ranch Series is illustrated with over 600 full-color photographs depicting the ranch and all the characters in the series, including books not yet released. You'll also see what it was like during the "missing years" in the series, when the children of the characters in Books 1-3 (the future heroes and heroines) were growing up on the ranch. To review or buy the Dancing Moon Ranch Family Album, click here

  Read the first three chapters of Forbidden Spirits, which is Book 10 in my Dancing Moon Ranch Series.

  DESCRIPTION: Tyler Hansen has two passions: Roman riding his horses as a rodeo special event and learning the source of the voices in Whispering Springs. All his life he's had a curiosity about the humanlike sounds in the mountain, and he's determined to learn the source. Rose Starbright, a tribal member who works at the living museum on the ranch, also has two passions: weaving baskets, which she sells in galleries, and documenting and preserving sacred sites, Whispering Springs being one of them. As legend goes, when a person sits immersed in the pool and listens to the voices, that person is cleansed of evil spirits. Tyler has his own theory about the voices and it has to do with trapped geysers, not spirits, so when he starts opening fissures Rose warns him to stop, that silencing the voices could have dire consequences. But Tyler doesn't believe in spirits, only science, so he continues his crusade to find the source. And then o
ne day, the mountain is silent. And that's when Tyler's troubles truly begin.

  PROLOGUE: FORBIDDEN SPIRITS

  Oregon Coast, North of Cape Meares

  Rose Starbright knew she was drifting between sleep and wakefulness, not quite in either reality. The dampness of the fog that had wrapped around her like a blanket during the early hours before daybreak seemed more real than dream, but the relentless ebb and flow of the ocean kept her in a dream state. Shadowy figures move around her, like things reaching out, but below the rise where she lay was an open beach washed with silvery foam from waves advancing and receding in the ethereal light of dawn. In her dream she stood because something caught her attention. It was moving toward her from a distance, but she couldn't make it out because of the fog that enclosed it, only that it was moving fast. Then it began to take form. Horses, several of them running in pairs, silvery-white horses they appeared to be as they came closer.

  The horses emerged from out of the mist and became clearly visible in the pearly-gray light of dawn. Three pairs of horses in a column galloped through the surf, moving in perfect unison while running in the water where it washed up onto the sand then receded, leaving a glassy surface that reflected the undersides of the horses. But what made Rose know this was a lucid dream, one in which she was aware that she was dreaming even though she was still asleep, was because a man stood on the backs of the pair of horses at the rear, one foot on each, the man's long hair streaming out behind him, like something out of a mythical legend.

  The horses turned then, making an elongated figure eight in the surf. The man seemed perfectly balanced on the horses' backs as the team moved at a breathtaking speed, the dazzling brilliance of the scene bringing Rose back to a time when she had a childlike fascination with magicians, and one had just conjured up a beautiful mythical god, a centaur, half horse, half man, because no mortal man could stand on the backs of horses while they galloped full out through the surf. The power of the horses and their mysterious beauty, with their flowing manes and tails, and the intimacy of the connection between the man and the animals at his command belonged in another world, like something straight from a fairy tale or a heroic epic. Watching the man and horses moving freely was something that a thousand over-used adjectives could not begin to touch because the scene was deep in her core, deep in her dream state.

  The horses turned in unison again, the relentless rhythmic motion of the waves lapping the shore and the silvery-white reflections in the surf making the man and animals appear like a phantom from the sea. They made one last sweeping turn and headed away, disappearing into the billow of low clouds that seemed to swallow them. And then they were gone.

  Rose found herself standing and looking at the vacant seashore. She was tempted to walk down to the beach and see if there were hoof prints in the sand, but she knew it was pointless because it had been a lucid dream, or maybe a hallucination as she emerged from a dream state. She held her hand out in front of her. She was fully awake now because she saw her fingers clearly and felt the morning mist against her skin.

  And then it came to her, what her grandmother told her so many years ago, that if she led a pure life her one true love would come to her in a dream. He'd have long flowing hair and would be riding on the backs of white horses. Of course the long hair meant he'd be an Indian, her grandmother's way of solidifying her wish that Rose marry within their culture, and the lucid dream had no doubt been triggered by her grandmother's prognostication. In the end, though, the man did not come to her. He simply disappeared into the fog.

  CHAPTER 1

  Dancing Moon Ranch, Sheridan, Oregon

  Rock hammer and chisel in his hand, Tyler Hansen headed for Whispering Springs, determined to test his theory while Marc was away. Marc and Kit and little Lizzy were staying with Ryan and Annie at the Kincaid Ranch while Marc did a site study of the petroglyphs in the box canyon near the ranch, and they'd be there for several weeks.

  Tyler had waited intentionally until Marc was gone because Marc guarded Whispering Springs like it was sacred, when in fact it was nothing more than a hot spring pool fed by what he suspected was an underground geyser that cycled at regular intervals, and the voices emanating from inside the mountain were the result of hot air seeping through cracks and fissures. The family and ranch guests and tribal members from the nearby reservation credited the voices to spirits and legends and idealistic imaginings, which was fine for its purpose of romanticizing something that was in reality nothing more than a glorified hot tub.

  He'd set out for the hot spring at daybreak when the surroundings were still a colorless gray so no one would be there. Dawn was his favorite time of day and always had been, that and at night when the moon was out. Midday became too congested with people and activity, something he avoided, which wasn't easy to do on a guest ranch that included a winery and a living museum comprised of a plankhouse, several pit houses, and a few other structures representing a village that once stood where the Indian mound rose, something that attracted numerous visitors during the summer months.

  As he approached the entrance to the cavern, Tyler wasn't sure, but it looked as if light was coming from inside, and as he moved closer, he got a whiff of smoke, like cedar or fir burning. He walked beneath the arched rock opening and went far enough into the cavern to see that he was right on both counts.

  The light inside was dim, no more than what came from a wind-up lantern, which sat on the rock floor off to the side of the hot spring pool, but from that glow he made out a tiny vessel with a curved handle and smoke curling from its mouth, and in the pool was a woman. He could tell from the golden light on her bare back, small waist and tapered hips that she was naked. She wouldn't know he was there because her back was to him and the area where he stood was in shadow. Still, not wanting to embarrass her, he backed out of the cavern and moved a short way down the trail so when she would come out, it would appear as if he were just arriving.

  It was some time before the woman emerged from the entrance. She wore jeans and a snug damp T-shirt that clung to her slender figure, and she had a towel tucked in a roll under her arm. In one hand she was holding the incense vessel, and in the other, the lantern. It was light enough now to see that she was Native American, probably from the reservation down the road. She was clearly startled to see him though, and maybe a little alarmed. It was an isolated place for any woman to be approached by an unfamiliar man.

  "Relax," he said. "I'm harmless."

  She smiled vaguely, but it was a feigned smile because he could tell from the way her eyes moved in an arc around his head that she was sizing up his long hair, which fell halfway down his back and which he usually gathered into a horsetail, but hadn't bothered at this early hour.

  The woman focused on his face again, and said, "I was just meditating and listening to the voices, but I didn't expect to find anyone at the spring so early. Do you come often at this time?"

  "When I come it's always at dawn so I can avoid people," Tyler replied.

  The woman glanced down at the tools in his hand then looked at him with curiosity. He raised his hand holding the hammer and chisel and answered her unasked question. "I'm doing a little research here."

  "Research with a hammer and chisel?" the woman asked.

  "Something like that," Tyler replied. "I take it you're from the reservation."

  The woman shrugged. "I could say the same of you from your facial characteristics. You have high cheekbones and a prominent nose, and with your dark eyes and long dark hair, you're obviously Indian."

  Tyler was surprised she was so open with her assessment. Most people studied him in curiosity but said nothing. "There's Nez Perce on my father's side," he replied, "but I'm the only one of us who got the gene."

  "There are more of you around here?" the woman asked.

  Tyler nodded. "I have five brothers and a sister."

  "Then you're… Marc Hansen's brother?" she asked, looking surprised.

  Tyler laughed. "He and I a
re the oddballs in the family. I started out looking like every other brother except Marc, then over the years broke the Jack Hansen mold and turned Indian."

  "Are you okay with that?" the woman asked.

  Tyler shrugged. "It makes no difference to me one way or another." He turned and looked down the trail, and wondering how she got there from the reservation, asked, "Did you walk here from wherever you live, or are you a guest at the ranch?" When he turned back she said nothing, just stared at him in sustained silence, her eyes again moving in an arc around his head, and he knew she was contemplating his hair again.

  To partially answer her unspoken query, he said, "Long hair isn't to reaffirm my Indian blood. I have other reasons. But you didn't answer my question about how you got here, not that you have to. I'm just curious."

  She blinked several times, like she'd just come out of a deep thought, and said, "I'm staying at Marc and Kit's house while they're gone so I can run the living museum. I started working for them last week." She again glanced down at the hammer and chisel in his hand. "What kind of research are you doing with those?" she asked. There were distinct negative undertones.

  "Proving a point," Tyler replied. "Everyone around here can do what they want with the information when I'm done."

  "I hope you don't plan to use those tools inside the cavern," the woman said, "because the place is a sacred site and can't be tampered with."

  "That hasn't been established," Tyler replied. "The petroglyphs on the wall indicate that it was a place where couples came to increase fertility by soaking up the minerals in the water, but it's never been designated a sacred site. Besides, I don't plan to chop holes in it, only open up a few fissures and see what happens. By the way, I'm Tyler Hansen, and you are…?"